Green Man Blog

The Schwarzwald (Black Forest) in Germany is a vast expanse of wooded mountains and green valleys that stretches south from the town of Baden Baden to the Switzerland border, and west to France, covering an area of 4,600 square miles.

It is said to be haunted by werewolves, sorcerers, witches, and the devil himself.




In 1878, Mark Twain took the first of his many world tours and visited the Black Forest. Walking through the woods, he described it in his book, A Tramp Abroad:

A rich cathedral gloom pervades the pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the moss they fairly seem to burn.

But the weirdest effect, and the most enchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon sun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused light takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland.

The suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at all times is intensified by this unearthly glow.





Tourists from all over the world still come to visit, taken in by its beauty, charm, and history.




Little gems appear everywhere, like tiny Mummelsee lake, an almost perfectly round shaped mountain lake from the Ice Age. The picturesque Mummelsee Hotel sits hard by the lake and legend says the 55-foot deep lake is inhabited by a mermaid named Nixe.




In the western Black Forest, a former volcanic mountain has been turned into a giant vineyard. This region, called Kaiserstuhl, is the third biggest wine growing area in Germany.

The biggest lake in the Black Forest is Lake Schluchsee. In summer weather the inhabitants sail and swim, and in the winter they cross country ski and ice skate.

Someday we’ll get there and try a little of that sailing and swimming ourselves.